For John Wesley, as with many others, the end goal of entire sanctification is to more perfectly restore man’s relationship with God which was lost in Adam’s fall. Yet, more even than this the end goal of perfect love is to restore the likeness of God within mankind which was so horribly marred by that same fall.
Yet, we should be clear. Wesley would emphasize that this is not a work that is completely or entirely achieved within this life. Rather, the work of grace within us is made complete after we die and arrive in heaven. At that time God will restore all humans who have embraced his grace to the perfect relationship mankind had with God in the Garden of Eden. Even more than this though, each individual will find the likeness of God within them to be made absolutely perfect as well. For many Christian thinkers this simply means that those moral attributes of God (mercy, justice, love), which we share though they be marred, will be fully repaired to be like God’s attributes again.
Wesley referred to this post resurrection scene as “glorification.” To his thinking it was the uttermost goal of salvation, to be glorified to what we were intended to be once we reached heaven. In light of this point it is all the more powerful to remember that some are given the gift of experiencing a foretaste of that glorification in this life. That is, after all, the purpose of God sanctifying our hearts, perfecting them in his love, and sealing them for his heavenly courts: that we might know a taste of heaven on earth by entering a more full relationship with him and being purified by the power of his Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ our Lord.
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